A Midnight Ravine
by Starlight Nova
Summary: Colby Daniels is no ordinary twenty one year old. His parents are both dead and Halloween is here. Walking along a solitary road with a mysterious path, any number of things can happen on this dark and dreary night. Colby has something special hidden within him that most people would call fantasy or magic. To him, its life. Short story stand-alone. Could be continued...


Original short by Christ, Jonathan, Ryan

Extended Short story by Ryan

**A Midnight Ravine**

_Colby Daniels was no ordinary twenty-one year old. He is not enrolled in any college nor has a girlfriend. Backpacking and traveling were his loves. His hair is a modest yellow blond with spooky emerald green eyes. His parents died mysteriously when he was young, on route 16 through nowhere. He inherited his father's height of 6'11" and his mother's quiet and reserved nature. He also gained her love for the outdoors and the appreciation for animals. _

_ On this particularly freezing and gloomy night, with the fog heavy and laden with the lingering mornings sun showers, Colby treks on a lonely stretch of black tar. He is looking for a quick ride out of here. The outdoors and animals might be his friends, but it was the total opposite come night. The uneasy feelings of the night and the whispers of the shadows scared the crap out of him. It was not long however before headlights cut through the dense fog, grabbing his attention from his thoughts and the monotonous traveling of a hitchhiker. He could not exactly remember how long he had been waiting for someone to come by, yet, he could not shake the feeling he was being watched by someone or something…_

When the driver of the bright red pickup truck saw me in his headlights and saw my disheveled state, he slowed down and started to pull over to the left of the forested road. I cautiously look behind me for more reasons than one then, then once having given my trusty backpack a nice tug, skipped along the pavement to meet the kind driver of the red truck.

(Cough) "Well, what might you be doing here at a place and time like this young lad?" The driver said in a gruff Texan accent. He had on stripped corduroys and dark blue jeans of a Texan. His face was spotted with occasional wrinkles and a scar here and there.

"Well, you see…" I stutter as I try and form a coherent response as the creepy feeling of being watched looms ever larger over my head. I quickly turn to look down the road by see nothing as the feeling leaves once again. "I am a hitchhiker and..."

"Well I can see that as plain as day me boy." He says, cutting me off and motioning to the inside of his truck, tipping his head. "My name is Curtis, nice to meet you."

I hesitantly open the door at the invitation and say a quick thank you while he introduces himself.

"haha, no need for that me boy. I am more than willing to lend a man some help or a ride if he ever needs it. It would not be kind of me to leave some poor old sap hanging around these mysterious parts, a road surrounded by a dense forest on either side. Oh no. It is Halloween anyway, don't ya know?" He laughs slightly as I get comfy in the old tattered seat of the pickup truck.

I gulp, the knot in my stomach getting slightly bigger as time moves on, wary to stay in one spot for too long.

"Um… My name is Colby, Colby Daniels" I respond to his question of what my name is.

"Well Colby, where are you headed?" Curtis intones with a hint of curiosity in his voice.

"Uh…Anywhere away from here I guess." I answer slowly. The fear in my voice must have gotten through to him because he then proceeded to slap me on his back with his work hardened hand.

He gives me a jolly chuckle and starts to pull away from the side of the road, revving the car up to cruising speed with high beams on.

"Do not worry; I have a twin barrel shotgun in the back seat. If anything tries to get at us, it can have a taste of my leaden balls." Seconds tick by as he suddenly bursts into laughter. "HA! Leaden balls! Good one eh?" He says, bumping me with his elbow then returning to steer his truck.

"Yeah." I say slowly. "Balls…"

The time passes by merely, or as merely as you can get when driving down a deserted road with two seemingly endless forests on either side of you. The endless blanket of fog blurs the vision of the trees and makes it look like a horror film while strange shapes and shadows pass innumerably through the thick forest. Jeez, it felt like the forest was going to come alive and snap me up with teeth for trees. I shudder involuntarily as Curtis puts on some soothing music, old 60's songs, with a band that I could not name.

We continued down this road for what seemed like a few hours, taking a few slight bends here and there. That feeling I had was slowly returning and I was slowly starting to get sweaty as it came back even worse than before. The thick blanket of fog that was hugging the ground and creeping into the surrounding forest did not help at all either. I suddenly blurt out in my panic as I had the feeling we were being followed.

"Uh…um…Curtis?" I say hurriedly and tentatively.

"Yes? What is it? Something got your tongue?" Curtis replied in a mild manner.

"Is there anyone following us?" I say, my heart beat speeding up as my breath now comes in great heaving breaths. I turn around to see if there is anyone following us, but all I can see is a small dark blue light that I can barely see just above the trees. Looking slightly up, I can also just spy the moon peaking out of the clouds in the sky, its eerie white light shining hauntingly on the black and foreboding forest which surrounds us.

"There is no one following us here me lad." Curtis replies strongly after he checked his rearview mirror. "I am sure I would have seen them with or without their lights on. Although this damned fog is making is nigh impossible to do that now anyway I guess. So no, no one is following us. And quit worrying, towns only twenty miles away. Nothing can happen in that time until we…"

"CURTIS LOOK OUT!" I shout desperately as a big hulking quadruped creature lunges out from behind the fog covered forest covering, cracking the road with its landing and runs directly at us. It looked bigger than Curtis's truck even!

Curtis yanks the steering wheel to the left to try and avoid both the horrifying beast and the dense forest to the right. Almost on instinct, the monster changes direction and slams the side of the door I am on and makes the car slide to a dangerous stop, skidding all the way to the opposite side of the road while nearly tipping the car at the same time.

"Holy Crap!" I yell in a panic. I feel a slight sting of pain as the door collapses inward towards me, scrapping my right arm as I barely pull it away in time. As the car comes to a screeching halt, gruesome images flash through my head as I managed to glimpse the thing in its eyes before it collided with us.

The eyes…Oh man, the eyes! They were glowing dark blue! That was what I felt following me! That was the eerie blue light I saw watching me from behind the trees. But wait, that was behind us. There could not have been…

My thoughts are interrupted as Curtis valiantly tries to start the engine of his now apparently old Chevy truck while blood pours down the right side of his face just above his eyes. How he got that wound in that location would be a mystery to me.

"Damn thing has never quit on me in a time of need. Shit! Why won't it start!?" He yells in total frustration as I hear a steady thump…thump…thump…Getting ever so closer to the car.

Locked in dread and mortal terror, I slowly turn my head to the right to see what is coming towards us. My eyes go wide, threatening to burst out of my head and into my lap at the size of that thing. That is not a dog and definitely not a wolf of any kind I know! The thing is almost two stories high for crying out loud! It should have sent us crashing, rolling and tumbling through the forest on the other side of the street. But…Why didn't it?

No time for that now though. I glance quickly backwards as I feel more thumps, steadier this time, almost as if in a run. I look back at the first beast and just barely see what it truly is for the first time. It walks forward towards us, stalking us. Great big dark blue eyes as if aflame settle onto my miniscule frame. My whole body shakes in terror as I start sweating up a storm, paying no heed as everything, the seat, my clothes, my backpack which I have… had in my lap now down near my feet are soaked in sweat.

My breathing comes faster and faster as I continue to stare at the massive frame of the creature. Two curled horns rising up then going forwards again like a medieval horn or that of ram's horns but doubly curled over. That was not even the end of it. Jagged protrusions jut out of the horns, making them look like very rough sandpaper. The fur on the beast is like a massive cushion. If I was not so damn afraid of this thing, I could have hidden inside of that things coat of fur. The color is a dark black color with faint swirls of brown and purple on its flanks. Its front legs were muscular and rippling with pure muscle and energy. Every step forward it took, I could see its muscles bulge out visibly from its coat of fur. Its hind legs were even more grotesque. It looked like slabs of meat were thrown onto into hind legs, and I could see those muscles even more clearly through its full matted fur than its front legs.

As it continues to creep closer, Curtis still cursing and trying to get the old truck started so we could get the hell out of here, time seemed to slow down. The great pounding steps of the giant beast take longer to complete. The steady Thump Thump Thump of the second beast that is running behind also slows down to that of a ballet dancer practicing a difficult number.

The last things I see before we get trashed are its massive teeth. As big as shovels and looking sharper than the sharpest knife, they are barred in a savage snarl as the beast comes at me and Curtis with time slowed down. My breath had also slowed down although I do not notice it. The contents of my bag are now soaked through and through by how much sweat is coming off my body. Tiny needles branch off of the creature's teeth as it comes ever closer. Serrated and able to tear an elephants head off in one bite. I get a faint glimpse of its accompanying tail. Big and fluffy like it fur, but with something big and sharp on the end of it, color to dark to truly make out.

My last thought is of how stupid I was to try and get a ride from a junkie who is addicted to powdery cocaine. Not that I did not think it could possibly be cake batter, it is just that I was tired from running from the cops for five miles. What better way to escape than hitching a ride with a fellow perpetrator. I guess he did not like my attitude when he asked where I wanted to go and drove for I do not know how long until sundown then shoved me out of his car, speeding away in a rage for being used for something else other than a getaway.

Time suddenly sped up and I was back in reality with Curtis still valiantly trying to start the car after all this time. He never got the chance as the front end of the truck was uplifted into the air by a powerful force. I had completely forgotten about the second beast as it had just pounced onto the end of the truck, cracking it in two, heaving us straight into the air.

"Wooooaaaah! Nooooooooooooo!" Curtis and I both scream out of sheer fright. Our breaths are taken away as we come violently down as the beast lifts it giant paw off then bites the middle of the truck, hoisting it up by its savage teeth, saliva dripping slowly down the side of its terrifying jaws and onto the truck.

It shakes us back and forth with dizzying speed as the old truck threatens to break in half under the strain. Luckily, it does not as the second beast throws us further down the road the way we were traveling. We dive sideways, hood tilted at an extreme angle downwards before we crash half on, half off the black pavement of the road. We skid five feet before the truck grinds to a screeching halt and starts to ominously smoke from various spots.

Curtis and I slump heavily onto the dashboard of the car, knocked out. Ten feet further from our crash, a metal signpost which partially displays the number _6_ sticks out of the grass and dirt, upturned by the force of the collision.

Heavy footsteps go unheeded as the two beasts close in on the truck. They growl and snarl, laugh and screech as the black furred beast with brown and purple swirls on its flank gingerly picks of Colby and they both sprint into the forest, not smashing a single one.

Come mid morning, a normal civilian finds Curtis's mutilated body inside the driver's seat of his old truck. Police are called into the scene of the accident. Only two rather big dents could be identified anywhere near the wreckage.

On one final inspection, the police find a freezing and soggy backpack. Once the contents were dumped; still wet with sweat onto the dry pavement, a small piece of paper sticks out from the rest of the objects.

It read:

"_Beware; you're in for a scare. They are coming and there is nothing you can do to stop them. Halloween will last forever when the shifters blood is spilt within the circle of sacred ghost spirits…_

_Beware…_

_You're in for a scare…_

_They are coming and there is nothing you can do to stop them…_

_Have a good night…_

_Hope the __bed __bugs __don't __bite…_

_Mwuahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!_


End file.
